


This is what the volume knob's for!

by Gay_as_fuck



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, One Shot, References to the Mountain Goats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29112828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_as_fuck/pseuds/Gay_as_fuck
Summary: "It's folk," Sam explains as he offers up the cassette. He says it like it's Seeger or Guthrie and not a brand new cassette tape from some indie rock nightmare.Or, Dean Winchester vs The Sunset Tree.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	This is what the volume knob's for!

**Author's Note:**

> this is so self indulgent.... Also, I think Dean Winchester would love John Prine

They're in the bunker when it happens. Sam's been glancing at Dean when he thinks his brother isn't looking. Dean knows, but he doesn't bring it up at breakfast. Sam shovels eggs into his mouth and fidgets worse when he's waiting for Dean to finish up his sausages. It's after their both done, drying their hand on Dean's favorite "There's No Place Like Home" dishtowel when Sam finally says what he's been meaning to. 

"It's folk," Sam starts as he offers up the cassette. He shifts his weight in the way that tells Dean he wants to say more but won't. Dean takes it from his open hand, eyeing the cover. It's brand new; no scratches, no yellowing, no stains. He offers it back. 

"Sam, this is a new cassette." 

"Yeah?" Sam shrugs his shoulders, trying to look cool. 

"Only shitty indie bands make new cassettes." Dean gestures with the cassette, waving it closer to Sam's face. Sam frowns in return and lays his hand atop Dean's, closing both their fingers around the case. 

"Okay, yeah, but this isn't that. It's not like The 1975 or Arcade Fire-" Dean gives a blank stare and Sam quiets, mouth twisting. He recovers quickly, removing his hand from Dean's before he speaks again. "You'll like it, trust me." 

"Alright," Dean rolls his eyes but he pockets the cassette and Sam considers it a win. The cassette sits in his jacket all day, through research, lunch and dinner. It hangs in his room during yet another screening of Goodfellas and for the few hours of sleep, Dean manages between tossing and turning. When he slips on his coat the next morning, bracing himself for the long ride to Georgia, he's forgotten it's even there. 

Dean's focus is somewhere else, on breakfast, weaponry, and the shittiest jokes about Georgia he can come up with. He's chuckling to his own innuendo about a "Georgia peach" when he buckles himself into Baby's seat and dances his fingers over her steering wheel. He reaches across to the glove compartment only for Sam to raise his hand up and stop him. Dean meets his eyes but Sam doesn't shrink. 

"Why don't we listen to that new cassette?" He smiles as he speaks. Dean knows his brother knows the rules when it comes to Baby but he withdraws himself back into his seat anyways. John had never been the biggest fan of folk music but it had been a vital part of Dean's musical education. He'd heard all of the greats, bargained for bootleg Guthrie recordings at a fleamarket in Millersburg, Ohio, and had meet Pete Seeger in person on a hunt in Connecticut. 

"I'll listen to one song but if it's crap you're fishing out that Guthrie recording." He stuck his hand in his pocket, drawing out the Cassette and throwing it to Sam who caught it with ease. Sam smiles wider and stuck it in the stereo with practiced ease. 

_I checked into a bargain-priced room on La Cienaga, gazed out through the curtains at the parking lot._

Dean can't help but smile a little at that. It's not inspired guitar playing but it's not too shabby. Besides, he had driven down La Cienaga just a year ago, he could practically smell the car fumes. His smile didn't last long. The song continued, saddening and making something itch inside. Sam shot him a sideways glance but he ignored it, eyes on the road. He'd stared himself down a hundred times in shitty hotel bathrooms, what did the singer think he was trying to say with that anyways. Maybe the next song would be better, he reasoned. He didn't hate the intro, and acts like this with odd singing voices usually needed something emotional to start the album. He let the music play. 

The next song was worse. Dean shifted as it played, mind caught up in the mental picture. He'd never been lucky enough to have a house to ruin with inaction until the bunker. The singer, whoever he was, had made the tone sadder. Death, suicide, isolation, it all hung heavy over the two of them. Sam wouldn't look at Dean, his eyes tight on the road like he was driving. Dean just sat with the song, remembering girlfriends from high school until the negative feeling inside of him had boiled up. He reached his hand over to shut the cassette off when something far more upbeat drifted through the speakers. 

_I broke free on a Saturday morning, I put the pedal to the floor. Headed north on Mills Avenue, and listened to the engine roar._

He let the cassette be at that, tapping out the tune. He could get behind this. Sam's perked up as well, drumming his fingers on his thigh. There's a good few bars where he's sure that the melodramatic content of the first two songs will bleed away.

_My broken house behind me and good things ahead, A girl named Cathy wants a little of my time._

His hands tighten around the wheel. His brain is still caught on the girls from every town they passed through, the ones who would share drinks with him behind the bleachers and only smile when he joked about something dark- and damn it, the song has that part covered too. He can practically taste what the singer describes, the Jack Daniels he swiped from John _bitter and clean_. 

Sam is singing along rather cheerfully, probably because no one has written out his life story and sang it for the whole world to hear. As the song comes to a close with talk of Jerusalem Dean knows he can't just stop the album here. If he stopped on the third song it would be letting the bastard who wrote this win. Hell, maybe Sam had this commissioned, told some asshole with a guitar to write about Dean and pass it off as a real song. 

"I mean really, Jerusalem?" He can't help but ask, forcing the internal conflict out of his voice as best he can. 

"Hey, it's a good image," Sam defends though Dean isn't sure where his brother's mind is. Is he caught up on the holy, the way heaven felt where every breath was clean and cold, or maybe he's thinking of the get together's they've finally gotten to have at the bunkers. They don't leave a space for John, but his absence is obvious. 

He's so caught up in the memories that he largely ignores the next song. The tempo worms its way into his mind all the same, breakneck and desperate. Sam doesn't sing along to this one but he bobs his head, occasionally stealing a worried glance at Dean. Dean doesn't notice it though, his eyes are on the tar in front of him and the drive to just escape, to run away from the music and the memory attached. It's only when the tension breaks and the song shifts that he shakes his head, coming back into reality, to notice he's been going 100 mph down the interstate. He slows some and readjusts his grip on the wheel. 

"If you want I can-" 

"No." Dean doesn't even let the question be asked. He's not so much of a bitch that a few songs can make him lose control. He's fine, what is Sam talking about anyway. 

_Alright, I'm on Johnson Avenue in San Luis Obispo, and I'm five years old, or six, maybe._

He takes a deep breath in, another song that's caught in a place and time. He's never been to San Luis Obispo, he's safe from whatever the topic is. That doesn't stop Sam from taking a quick breath in and shifting in his seat. 

"If folk music is too much for you," Dean offers with a cruel smirk on his face but Sam shakes his head.

"It's a short one. Besides, you were getting pretty upset there yourself." 

"Whatever you say, man," Dean scoffs. Sam's right, the song is punchy and barely lasts two minutes. Still, Dean can understand why it's left Sam so shakey. Fights with John often ended with something broken, though Dean wouldn't go as far as to call it abuse the way the album implies. It was just a complicated relationship. 

Sam breaths and his frown fade as the next song plays. This one is just plain sad, a piano medley. It's a breakup of some sort but Dean's never had a romantic relationship last long enough, or be consistent enough to earn this level of melodrama. There's no point in wallowing over crushes as a kid when you don't know how long you'll live. If it keeps up like this the rest of the album will be easy. So one song got the best of him, what's so bad about that? 

_There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet, no matter where you live._

Dean laughs at that because it's true. Almost every bumfuck town has some sort of haunting, be it in their dinner, graveyard, or sawmill. He's only where he is today, wanted in all 50 states and surprised at how long he's lasted because there are ghosts in every closet. His trigger finger itches as the song continues, a tale of revenge spun out in references to Romulus and Remus. Sam gets uncomfortable again and Dean can sympathize. Sam can't remember Mary at all and Dean's happy not to dwell on it. She was a good mother, for the few years he had with her, but he can't really remember what she looked like. The details he thought would always be seared into his mind have dulled with time. 

The violent imagery doesn't stop with the song. Dean's used to violence, he wears it as easy as a second skin. The eighth song carries on in the same vein, of murders in sleepy suburbs and maulings in small towns. He feels as though he belongs there, with the narrator fighting off some great beast, fighting off his father. He shakes his head and speeds up a little, he won't think about when his father, when Azazel- 

Another song starts just in time for Dean to abandon the idea completely. He takes a steadying breath and tries to tap his unoccupied foot along to the song. He can't keep the rhythm, his focus entirely on the lyrics. 

_Held under these smothering waves, by your strong and thick-veined hand, but one of these days I'm going to wriggle up on dry land._

He drives directly into the breakdown lane and puts the car in park. Sam starts and turns towards Dean, concern clear on his face. 

"What are you doing?" Dean just grunts and turns up the song in response, Sam stares. With Dean's eyes straight ahead and his hands clamped tight on the wheel he lets the song play out. A few pass by with Dean's ever-tightening jaw the only sign that he's still paying attention to the world around him. Sam hovers, a hand close to the volume knob in case anything goes really sideways. The album is emotional certainly, he'd cried the first time he listened to it, but this is a little melodramatic, even for Dean. 

After the album plays out Dean just sits there, _pale green things_ echoing through the car. Sam stops it after that and the pair just sit in silence. 

"What did you say this band was called again." Dean says after a few minutes, his voice wavering. Sam offers a hand on his shoulder and a knowing smile. 

"They're called the Mountain Goats. I can get you another CD if you want or-" He swallows, checking Dean over again as if there's an injury he can fix. "It's a little intense," he finishes lamely. 

"You can say that again." Humor starts to creep back into Dean's voice. He shakes off Sam's comforting hand and wipes at his eyes, though he didn't shed a tear. As he flexes his hands he nods his head towards the glove compartment. 

"How about you find that Seeger tape." He says as he starts the car again, his voice steadying. 

"Of course." Sam smiles and switches the cassettes. It's best to play some music that won't traumatize his brother any further, it's a long way to Georgia after all.


End file.
